Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has issued a stern warning to Israel, threatening to wage a war “without restraint, without rules and without ceilings” in the event of a major Israeli offensive against Lebanon.
Nasrallah’s remarks on Wednesday come amid growing tensions on Lebanon’s border with Israel, after Israeli officials reiterated that the country was ready for all-out war against Hezbollah.
“Everything that the enemy says, the threats and warnings of the mediators – and what is said in the Israeli media – about a war in Lebanon does not scare us,” Nasrallah said in a speech via video .
He said Israel is the party that should be “afraid.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz on Tuesday raised the prospect of serious conflict with the Lebanese group after Hezbollah released surveillance drone footage showing important infrastructure and military sites in northern Israel .
“We are very close to the moment of the decision to change the rules against Hezbollah and Lebanon. In an all-out war, Hezbollah will be destroyed and Lebanon will be severely affected,” Katz wrote in a social media post.
“The State of Israel will pay a price on the front and on the home front, but with a strong, united nation and the full might of (the Israeli army), we will restore security to the people of the north. »
On Wednesday, Nasrallah highlighted Hezbollah’s military capabilities, saying the group had acquired new weapons and had an abundance of drones that it manufactures locally.
“The enemy knows well that we have prepared for the most difficult days,” he said. “The enemy knows very well what awaits him, and that is why he has been deterred until now. And he knows that there will be no place in the country that will be untouched by our rockets and drones. And it will not be indiscriminate bombing: every rocket is a target.”
Nasrallah also suggested that Hezbollah could send ground forces into Israeli territory.
“The enemy greatly fears that the resistance will invade northern Israel, and this is a possibility that remains present in the context of any war imposed on Lebanon,” he said.
The Iran-aligned Lebanese organization began attacking military bases in northern Israel in the wake of the outbreak of the Gaza war on October 7, in what it describes as a “support front” to support Palestinian groups.
Nasrallah stressed that the Lebanese front was making a difference in the broader confrontation against Israel and drawing Israeli military resources away from Gaza.
Threat to Cyprus
Nasrallah also issued a warning to Cyprus, a European Union member located in the eastern Mediterranean, west of the Lebanese and Israeli coasts. He said the group had information that Israel was conducting military exercises in Cyprus on terrain similar to that in southern Lebanon.
Nasrallah added that Israel plans to use Cyprus’s airports and bases for military purposes if its military infrastructure is attacked in a serious war.
“Opening Cypriot airports and bases to the Israeli enemy to target Lebanon means that the Cypriot government has become part of the war, and the resistance will deal with this as part of the war,” he said without further details.
Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides said his island nation “is in no way involved” in military operations in the region.
“Cyprus is not part of the problem, it is part of the solution. This role is evident, for example, through the humanitarian (aid) corridor which has been recognized not only by the Arab world, but also by the international community,” he said, referring to the aid shipments. aid from Cyprus to Gaza via a maritime corridor.
Cypriot government spokesman Constantinos Letympiotis said Thursday that the statements and threats made by the Hezbollah leader do not correspond to reality.
“Our relations remain excellent with Lebanon,” he added.
Nasrallah also warned that the group would open a naval front against Israel in the Mediterranean.
He added that Hezbollah would continue its attacks against Israeli targets, saying the solution to the crisis is “clear”: end Israel’s war on Gaza.
More than 37,000 people have been killed in Israel’s attack on Gaza since October, according to Palestinian health officials.
Israel launched the war after Hamas, the Palestinian group that governs Gaza, carried out an attack on southern Israel, killing at least 1,139 people, according to an Tel Aviv Tribune tally based on Israeli statistics, and in capturing around 250 more.
Nasrallah defended Hamas for making its demands on a multi-phased US-led proposal that Washington said would lead to a “lasting ceasefire”.
He said the US plan has an “obvious” loophole that would allow Israel to resume the war after the first stage of the proposal, which would see the release of some Israeli prisoners held by Hamas.
